The incessant grumblings of a sports junkie

NRL 2017

For the second time in three years, a Grand Final featuring two non-Sydney clubs will be played at the Olympic Stadium. What an utter embarrassment this is for the Sydney clubs who purport to own the game.

When Josh Dugan was busy burning bridges on social media and missing the team bus, Michael Morgan and his teammates were waiting silently behind the scenes, hoping the Dragons would self-implode and the Cowboys would fall into the finals.

The Dragons, who scored more tries than the Cowboys during the regular season, went on to lose to the Bulldogs in a game that had the hallmarks of final but featured two teams whose cultures were suffering the ill effects of a few self-important, overpaid prima-donnas.

The rest is history. The Cowboys made it through to the finals, defeated the defending premiers, the comeback kings, and the high flyers, and now find themselves in another Grand Final.

Their drought-breaking victory against the Broncos two years ago in the greatest Grand final of the modern era will go down as the finest in their history no matter what happens because Jonathan Thurston was finally crowned a premiership winner. But a win against the giants of the game would give many punters, not to mention rugby league fans, something to smile about.

The club’s culture is what has allowed them to achieve so much success over the past few years. There are few other teams in the competition that could make it through to the Grand Final from eighth position, and even fewer who could do it without two of the game’s greats.

When Jonathan Thurston and Matt Scott were ruled out for the entire season, few gave them a chance of moving within touching distance of the finals.

Then former Queensland Origin star Justin O’Neill went down with an elbow injury, and the Cowboys were all but written off.

What followed showed the unity of the club and the resilience of certain players that don’t receive the plaudits they deserve because they play in a side that is headlined by Thurston and fronted by enforcer Jason Taumalolo.

One of these underrated stars is Michael Morgan, who has gone from Thurston’s right hand man to dominant playmaker.

His performances in the finals series without the game’s greatest halfback have suddenly put Morgan within the top echelon of playmakers in the NRL. He has laid down a marker and asked the competition to chase him.

Nathan Cleary might be the best up and coming half in the competition, and Pearce a reliable playmaker at club level with all the talent but little to show for it, but neither has had to overcome the kind of adversity Morgan has this season.

Take one look at the rugby league forums, news sites and on social media and you will see that Morgan has gained a number of supporters across the finals series.

Kids suddenly want to be him, coaches lose sleep over him, and the remainder of the competition envies his ever-expanding skill set.

Many have said that Queensland’s Origin dynasty will die off once Thurston and Cronk depart, but Morgan has shown there is plenty of life in the Maroons when the current stars begin to get their retirement plans in order.

Perhaps the most fascinating battle this Sunday will be the one between the old firm – Cronk and Smith – and the next generation – Morgan and Te Maire Martin.

Cronk has played mentor to Morgan for several years, and has taught him the tricks of the Origin trade. Now he must find a way to shut him down.

Also key to the Cowboys success are Shaun Fensom, Te Maire Martin and 2015 Grand Final star Kyle Feldt.

There are several young halves in the competition that have had their names put up in lights, but Te Maire Martin is going about his work quietly yet effectively.

Then there is Fensom, who has had to work his way back to the top since falling out of favour with the Canberra Raiders.

Fensom spent much of last season in reserve grade but Green, like he does so often, took a punt on him and his investment is now paying dividends.

Think about the number of players Green has pulled from relative obscurity to fill a void in the Cowboys line-up. There’s Granville, who Green coached at Wynnum Manly and brought across to the Cowboys from Brisbane after just 10 first grade appearances; Coeen Hess, who they signed on a whim after a successful U/18’s campaign for the Townsville Stingers; and, of course, Michael Morgan, who is another local product that Green has turned into a million dollar half since taking the reigns.

Somehow, Green has been able to change some of these bits and pieces players into premiership winners and—perhaps more importantly—a single, united team rather than a team of individuals who are more concerned about their own public image than they are their club.

Many clubs go in search of marquee players with over 100 games of first-grade experience to deliver them a premiership. The Cowboys policy, with Green as head coach, has been to bring fringe first graders to the club that other teams wouldn’t take a second look at, and mould them into hard-working footballers that buy into the culture created by Thurston et al.

The Roosters and South Sydney have won premierships at some point over the last five-years by bringing superstars like Sonny-Bill Williams and Sam Burgess to the club. The tradeoff is that when these players depart, they are left with a hole in the salary cap that they must fill with undeveloped players who haven’t been nurtured by the club and mentored by its forefathers.

The Bulldogs are going in search of a premiership next year by using the very same approach, and it might pay off in the future, but when they all depart at once, the club will be left in dire straights. Young players will be thrown into the deep end without knowing what it takes to deal with the hustle and bustle of the NRL.

The Cowboys have been in two deciders in the last three years with only two genuine superstars on their list. The rest have been taught to play for the spirit of the jumper and the loyal fans living in the North of Queensland.

If they play at anywhere below their best on Sunday night, the Storm will carve them up like a Christmas turkey. If they show the fight that has been drummed into them, then they will really fulfil their ‘giant killers’ tag.

When a team goes on a seven game winning streak it is usually the spine that deserves the lion’s share of the praise.

This is certainly the case at Penrith, where Nathan Cleary – tipped to take the reigns from Mitchell Pearce as NSW halfback in 2018 – has guided his team to the top eight despite a slow start to the season that had many fans questioning whether the tide would ever turn.

Cleary is currently the NRL’s leading point scorer, having racked up 206 points in 22 games.

Nathan Cleary in full flight – Picture: NSWRL

To put this into perspective, he is 27 points ahead of the next highest point scorer Gareth Widdop, and a whopping 116 in front of exciting young halfback Ashley Taylor, who many regard as the best young half in the competition.

Perhaps more impressive is the fact that he became the youngest player to reach 200 points in a premiership season on Sunday against the Raiders, and is within the top ten point-scorers at the Panthers already.

But a good halfback shouldn’t be judged on stats alone.

Cooper Cronk won the Dally M Medal last year because of the impact he had on every game he was involved in.

Much like Cronk at the Storm over the years, Cleary has played a starring role in Penrith’s victories and their late season resurgence.

There is no better example of this then when Cleary single-handedly pulled his side off the canvas against the Warriors in round 19.

With their season on the line and down 22 points to 18, Cleary scored a brace of tries to win the game and send the Panthers down the road to finals football.

They haven’t lost a game since.

Few playmakers have this kind of influence on a game, and even fewer have as much control over a side as Cleary.

When Matt Moylan was absent with injury, Cleary became the dominant playmaker and the side has looked a more polished and dynamic outfit ever since.

Compared to other players of a similar age, Cleary’s performances have been far superior.

He has shown wisdom beyond his years in salvaging what was at one stage a lost cause for the Panthers.

It makes you wonder just where he ranks amongst the greatest halfbacks of the last decade, and where he might rank come the end of his career.

If Jonathan Thurston is the benchmark, and Andrew Johns a close second, then Cleary must be in the hunt to scale past the heights reached by Darren Lockyer during his 355 game career.

At just 19, Cleary has shown that he is capable of doing what Thurston does instinctively and what Johns made a career out of – running the ball at the line, basing his football around a strong kicking game, and taking complete control of the match during clutch moments.

Most importantly, he is as tough as old leather and has shown his mental resolve to be up to the rigors of first grade football, no matter the pressure of the situation put in front of him.

If he is capable of such brilliance after just two seasons in the top grade, god only knows where he will end up.

It is far too early to judge if Cleary will be held in such high esteem. And it is easy to fall into the trap of hyping up a young half only for them to fade into oblivion a few years later.

The NRL has proven too much for many a talented youngster in the past; they set the U20’s alight and expect this form to continue as they make the transition into first grade, but soon find it difficult to cope in a dog-eat-dog world.

Todd Carney debuted for Canberra at age 17 but quickly fell in with the wrong crowd and is now fighting tooth and bone to make ends meat in the Super League.

Kane Elgey is another example of a young player bursting onto the scene only to pick up an injury and return a lesser player.

And who can forget players like Chris Sandow and Tim Smith who came and went quicker than Kevin Rudd during his second term as Prime Minister.

There are many other cases of young players failing on the field or finding trouble off it, but Cleary doesn’t seem like the kind of player that would let his talent go to waste.

The Panthers are expected to table an offer that would see Cleary remain at the club until 2024.

If Ben Hunt is worth $1.2 million, then it’s hard to see Cleary going for anything less.

The only thing that isn’t running in his favour is that he doesn’t yet have the runs on the board. He has been instrumental in his side’s late season surge, but hasn’t been in a successful finals series or a winning Grand Final.

All signs, though, were pointing to an upward surge in form. Just six-months earlier the Tigers had missed out on the finals by a single point, while James Tedesco, Aaron Woods, and Robbie Farah had all earned NSW Blues caps.

The club attempted to pass it off as a coaching issue, and in many ways it was. But those who know rugby league recognised that there were deeper issues at play and that the club was actually being held to ransom by the ‘big four’ – Tedesco, Woods, Moses and Brooks.

There were rumours circulating at the time that the ‘big four’ had grown unhappy with the coaching situation at the Tigers and so they threatened to hold off on re-signing until the club made changes.

To compound this issue, Robbie Farah had also been forced out of the club at the end of the 2016 season following a bitter feud with Taylor that began way back in 2014.

Taylor allegedly told Farah he was ‘selfish’ for not passing up the opportunity to play for Australia in favour of training with the Tigers.

At the Gold Coast, it is Jarryd Hayne who has grown disenchanted with his coach.

Quite clearly, the relationship between Henry and Hayne is untenable. Both want out if the other remains, even if the former will claim that rumours of disharmony within the camp are nothing more than a media beat-up.

In recent days the issues at the Titans have snowballed, with Elgey and Taylor reportedly issuing the club with a similar ultimatum to Hayne.

It makes you wonder just how much power the players have in this day and age.

The issues between Hayne and Henry stem back to when the former San Francisco 49er first signed with the Gold Coast in August last year.

Only months ago stories broke of Hayne and his sloppy training habits.

Former teammates spoke to Hayne’s attitude and laziness in the days following and confirmed the worst for Henry – his poor habits were inbuilt and were not going away anytime soon.

It was revealed soon after that Hayne had been punted from the Titans’ leadership group for turning up to pre-season training overweight.

His former coaches know this side of Hayne all too well.

In fact, during his time at Parramatta, Hayne went through no less than 7 coaches. None could ever fully harness his potential, and so all were told to hit the bricks by the Parramatta board within two years of signing.

Some will say this is the nature of the beast. Coaching is a results driven role and part of the job description is to get the best out of each and every player regardless of the size of their ego or the depth of their pockets.

But Hayne has killed more coaches than Mortein has killed flies. None have been able to tame the beast and get him to deliver on a game-by-game basis.

Henry has been unsuccessful in bucking this trend and now his cards are marked.

All signs point to the Titans supremo being sacked next week in much the same way as Taylor was by the Wests Tigers following his falling out with the big four back in round three.

These days it is the coach who must fall on their sword, not the player. They are the ones held accountable if the club goes down the toilet.

It makes sense for the Gold Coast to sack Henry given they have more to lose by ripping up Hayne’s contract. Not only is Henry one of the most poorly payed coaches in the competition, and will only need to be payed out $400,000 if his contract is terminated, but Elgey and Taylor will follow Hayne out the door if Henry is allowed to hang around.

That’s a risk the club can ill afford to make.

This is a sad state of affairs for the NRL more than anybody. Players have far too much say in what happens at the administrative level and have the power to force a coach out of the club whenever the mood strikes.

In Taylor’s case, it was the players who held a gun to the board’s head and forced them into making a decision. Now three of the infamous ‘big four’ are either at another club or on the move in 2018.

If there is a lesson to take away here, it is that sometimes problems at a football club run deeper than the coach. They are the lightning rods for blame when things go wrong but are rarely the source of a club’s internal issues.

South Sydney may have taken some joy in defeating the Dragons on Friday night, but their season has been far from memorable thus far. They are currently languishing in 11th position on the competition ladder after 22 rounds, with just seven wins to their name and thirteen losses.

Their record following 2014 and the glory that ensued doesn’t make for pretty reading either – on just a single occasion have they made the finals. The year was 2015, and they were hustled out in the first week by Cronulla, 28 points to 12. They haven’t been back since, and 2017 is destined to end the same way.

So where has it all gone wrong for South Sydney since Sam Burgess lifted the trophy with a busted cheek bone less than three years’ ago?

Earlier this year I wrote an article on why Michael Maguire would be the next coach to be given the flick.

The weight of history was against him, and there were many parallels that could be drawn between the sacking of Geoff Toovey at Manly back in 2015, two years after making the Grand Final, and Maguire’s current tenure at South Sydney.

But after hearing him speak about the passion he has for the club, it appears he might just be the right man to turn the Bunnies fortunes around.

It makes you wonder what else could cause a proud club to slip from drought-breaking premiers to struggling cellar dwellers in such a remarkably short period of time.

The roster is almost entirely different, but you expect that given it has been close to three years since the Bunnies hoisted the Provan Summons Trophy, don’t you?

Well, no. To put this into perspective, only James Tamou is missing from the starting 13 that lined-up for the Cowboys in the 2015 Grand Final.

The Roosters premiership winning side of 2013 looks much the same today as well, with the exception of a few key omissions – Sonny-Bill Williams (Rugby Union), Anthony Minichello (Retirement), James Maloney (Sharks) and Michael Jennings (Parramatta).

The message to take away here is that if you have a premiership winning side, you generally try to keep it together until a players’ form drops or the group of listed players exceeds the salary cap. Not until it reaches this point do you start the culling process. And even when this does become a necessity, you certainly don’t decimate your spine and draft in players that add no value to the current squad.

South Sydney have done exactly this. Since winning the premiership back in 2014, they have pushed out players like Luke Keary, Apisai Koroisau and Dylan Walker, who have excelled at their new clubs and left the Bunnies to lick their wounds and wonder what life would be like had they never parted ways.

This is where Russell Crowe is introduced to the narrative. It has been well documented that he has assumed some control of the shape of the side and kept players at the club based on their personality rather than their footballing prowess.

His love for the Burgess brothers is another consistent thread.

Sam, Tom and George have been retained by South Sydney for the last few years despite just one of them being a deserving recipient of a contract renewal. Sam is a world-class player, a workhorse, and someone you’d give your right arm to lure to your club. His brothers, however, simply don’t bring the same star-power, and have caused Maguire more headaches than joy over the past two seasons with their sloppy ball-handling skills.

At some point, you have to ask if it’s worth moving them on and looking at other options, because their salaries are taking up a chunk of the cap that has seen far too many talented players pass through the back door of the South Sydney club office.

At the end of this season, talented winger Bryson Goodwin will join that list. You have to wonder whether he was ever allowed to reach his full potential at South Sydney. Sure, there were bright spots, but he never managed to reach the heights that he did at the Bulldogs way back in 2009, where he earned his first international cap with New Zealand.

On top of South Sydney’s poor management, their recruitment strategy must come into question. Why was Robbie Farah brought to the club this year when Damian Cook was more than ready to assume the post left vacant by the departing Cameron McInnes? (There’s another name to add to that list.)

We’ve seen already this year, particularly as the season has begun to wind down, that Damian Cook is Maguire’s first choice hooker. So why bother wasting money on Farah?

I understand that he was NSW’s starting number nine at the time of his purchase, but $750,000 a year for a player that spends most of his time on the bench is another example of the tangled web South Sydney are weaving through mismanagement. He’s earning almost as much as Burgess, despite playing a quarter of the Englishman’s minutes.

South Sydney have got their recruitment so wrong that John Sutton has been forced to spend most of this season at five-eighth. Imagine a world in which Keary, who has set the world on fire for the Roosters this year, was lining up alongside Adam Reynolds. The former a running five-eight with speed to burn. The latter a 130 game stalwart with one of the best kicking games in the competition on his day – just ask the Panthers.

Yet fans have been stuck watching John Sutton, who has offered very few edge of your seat moments through 22 rounds of competition.

His stats paint an accurate picture of his ongoing struggles – 4 try assists and just 8 line-breaks so far in 2017. Compare this to some of the competition’s other five-eighths like Gareth Widdop (16 try assists), or even young Brock Lamb in a struggling Knights side (8 try assists), and you can start to see why the Rabbitohs are cemented to the bottom of the competition ladder.

They might argue that Sutton has spent a lot of time in halves this season due to an injury to Greg Inglis, who himself has spent time at five-eight in the past. But a lack of recruitment foresight is what constantly ruins a clubs’ premiership run, and few of those currently making a march towards the finals don’t have a contingency plan in place.

When Cooper Cronk isn’t around, Melbourne have Brodie Croft; North Queensland have Te Maire Martin, whom without they might be struggling to compete; the Eels had Gutherson before Moses arrived; and the Broncos, well they’re spoilt for choice.

South Sydney have set themselves up for failure, and lack the foresight that clubs like Melbourne and coaches like Bellamy pride themselves on. They’ve said farewell to two hookers who are now starting at rival clubs (McInnes and Koroisau), an extremely talented number six who has excelled since being given the chance to shine and not confined to the bench (Luke Keary), and now must make do with players who are out of position or completely out of their depth.

Russell Crowe might be a world-renowned actor, but a man manager he is not. If he knows what is good for the club, he will take a back seat and leave the roster to Michael Maguire and his associates. Maybe then we will see more gems like Angus Crichton be unearthed.

We can now safely assume the NRL has learnt nothing from the events of last week.

Yet again on the weekend, a blatant act of thuggery went unpunished. This time Kenny Edwards was the perpetrator; Jonus Pearson the victim.

Seriously, how far does it need to go before the NRL steps in and puts a stop to the violence that is driving young fans – and perhaps more importantly, their parents – away from the game in their droves.

Last week I wrote two articles outlining what needs to change if the NRL are to get on top of this issue and repair the game’s image. The crux of my argument was that any forceful contact to the head that results in injury, be it a deliberate act like Edwards’ or a late high shot like Soliola’s, should be made a send-off offence, with the player receiving a lengthy stint on the sideline as further punishment.

This is the only way we’ll bear witness to change and stamp out what is an ugly look for our game.

The fact remains, though, that the NRL have let another one slip through their grasp this week.

Where is Archer’s confession of the referee’s mistake?

Unless they are content with the laughable $1500 dollar fine handed out to Kenny Edwards, the referee’s boss must set the record straight for the second time in two weeks.

Without sounding like a broken record, his job is to make clear to the public in layman’s terms what they see to be a send-off offence and how they are going to deal with players who cross the line on the field.

The silence from the critics who slammed Soliola’s hit on Slater but have opted out of commenting on Edwards’ pathetic display is deafening. There are differences in the two cases, but both caused harm to the opposition player and have brought the game into disrepute. Those who heaped blame on Soliola last week, but have gone into hiding this week, are part of the problem. We need consistency in order to achieve a cleaner image.

This starts with Archer; he must set the tone. Nothing will get done if we continue to treat each case using a different set of rules. Edwards’ cowardly hit on Pearson and Soliola’s late hit on Slater are one and the same – both could have resulted in serious injury. Yet Soliola gets suspended for five weeks and Edwards receives a minor blow to the bank balance and is allowed to take the field next weekend?

I’ll say it again: what image does this game want to uphold? One of thuggery and violence where cowardly acts are rife and accepted? Or one that takes a tough stance on contact that puts the players in harm’s way?

Outside of reform, consistency and standardising the rulings around high contact is required. If a player gets banned for a high shot one week, a swinging arm or a deliberate elbow to the head after a tackle is completed should receive the same penalty the next.

But this game has long struggled with getting consecutive rulings right, both on and off the field.

Melbourne Storm were stripped of their premierships back in 2010 and forced to play close to an entire season without accruing points. Yet the Parramatta Eels are told in 2016 that if they cut a few players and become cap compliant, they can continue earning premiership points and potentially make the top eight.

Seems fair enough.

And what about Todd Carney being ousted from the NRL over his boozy antics at a pub, while Mitchell Pearce simulates a lude act with a dog and is banned for just eight weeks.

Sure, Todd Carney was on his third and final chance, but when you put the two acts into context it is clear that there are many similarities; foremost, that they both caused irreparable damage to the game’s image.

Then there are the disparities in the length of bans between codes for the use of both recreational and performance enhancing substances over the past few years.

In 2014, a few Cronulla players received backdated suspensions that saw them miss just three matches following an investigation by WADA into an illegal supplement regime implemented at the club in 2011. Meanwhile, in the AFL, Essendon were made to play the entire 2016 season with the majority of their squad missing for the same offence.

Again, there are differences in the two cases, but how can the NRL come up with such a different ruling to the AFL?

All of this smacks of double standards. And a game cannot clean up its image if it continues to treat similar cases differently.

Todd Greenberg is doing a fine job in charge of the NRL, but his biggest problem, after reading his responses to the questions posed by journalist Phil Rothfield on Tuesday, is that he cannot accept there are problems with the game.

Allow me to let you in on a secret, Todd: the game is completely lost at the moment. Not only are we incapable of getting something as simple as a ruling on high shots correct, but crowd numbers have decreased dramatically across the last five years and refereeing has hit an all-time low despite the millions of dollars that have been poured into improving the way the game is officiated.

The game’s image is as scrambled as your morning eggs. One day it’s a sport filled with skill and heroism, unrivalled by anything else on this planet – think the 2015 Grand Final. The next it has a drug problem, can’t control what its players are doing, and is allowing acts that belong in the UFC pentagon to take place without punishment – think rep round, NSW Origin camp and either Soliola’s or Edwards’ brutal and cowardly displays of violence.

Other sports are sitting back in their cane chairs and waiting for the NRL to implode so they can take up its share of the market.

The way it’s going, this could happen within the next two decades.

Who’d let their son or daughter play a game as poorly managed and seemingly dangerous as rugby league when there are safer alternatives that aren’t likely to cause their child’s face to be sprawled over the front page of the newspaper for drug possession in 10 years’ time?

Who’d even bother attending when the NRL are making decisions that are quite obviously causing the competition to become less attractive for viewers and harder to follow?

The proof is in the pudding – crowds are down 2% on last year and participation rates are declining at an alarming rate.

Some will say bring back the good old days of suburban venues, mid-game brawls and contested scrums.

Those days are sadly behind us. But with the game as out of whack as it is, it could do worse than to follow the old-school mantra – with a modern twist, of course.

It’s hard to believe the NRL match review committee could compound the issue regarding Sia Soliola’s hit on Billy Slater. But they’ve done exactly that by giving the Canberra prop just a five-match suspension as opposed to the six that certain parties were pushing for. If they were interested in taking a tough stance on careless tackles, be they intentional or not, Sia Soliola had to be given the maximum penalty available.

That means he shouldn’t be returning in round 26 against, you guessed it, the Melbourne Storm. He should’ve been banned for the rest of the season without pay and received a reprimand from the club and the NRL.

This was the NRL’s only option after the on-field referees, and those reviewing the decision from the bunker, decided to allow Sia Soliola to remain on the field despite clear-cut evidence he deserved to be sent off.

Many have argued that the referees are either scared to make this decision because they fear being dropped over poor decisions, or are totally lost as to what does and doesn’t constitute a send-off.

Either way, the NRL had the opportunity to put the argument to bed on Tuesday night but squandered the opportunity much like they did at Canberra stadium on Saturday.

The issue for me, as the match review panel currently stands, is that players are being given lighter sentences when they plead guilty. This simply doesn’t make sense.

‘Sia, because you’ve accepted that you are in fact guilty, we have decided to reduce your charge by one week.’

We are not dealing with convicted murderers here; we are dealing with footballers. As a result, charges should not be downgraded because they have accepted that their actions were not befitting of the NRL’s rules and regulations. What message does that send to the rest of the competition – you can hit a player late and high but still get away with a lighter sentence because you’ve acknowledged that your actions were wrong?

It’s no wonder the NRL has an image problem.

This isn’t the first time they’ve botched a sentence this year. When Tim Simona was found to be fixing matches and committing heinous crimes, Todd Greenberg didn’t mark him down on the no fly list, leaving the door ajar for corruption to creep back into the game at some point in the future.

And what about their soft approach to salary cap breaches in the past.

By not taking a hardball stance on blatant thuggery at the judiciary earlier this week, the NRL have effectively condoned violence.

Slipping or not, hits like Soliola’s give rugby league a bad name.

If the NRL were to make strides forward in preventing a repeat of the shocking events of Saturday night, Tony Archer, or another NRL representative, needed to make clear the rules around send-offs, sin-bins and general misconduct.

It’s no good leaving it to ‘instinct’ as some sources have suggested. We need black and white rulings.

This means contact to the head of an opposition player is made a send-off offence – whether it was intentional or not. Players must be protected.

If the NRL are truly committed to making the game cleaner than it currently is, then its high time they stopped operating their judiciary hearings like a court of law and removed those outdated and non-functional grading terms like ‘careless, late and reckless’.

The more criteria the NRL use for determining the extent of a penalty, the more decisions they are going to get horribly wrong. And for a game already losing its place amongst the younger population due to acts like Soliola’s, it cannot afford for the NRL to continue going soft on brutal hits.

It’s official – the send off is dead. If ever there was a time for it to come back into play again after six years in hibernation, it was Saturday when Sia Soliola’s sickening hit on Billy Slater left us all seeing stars.

Referees Boss Tony Archer – Image Source: The Roar

In the Super League, the referee’s red card would have been pulled out sooner than Soliola was able to regain his feet. Yet here in the NRL, the referees have gone soft on late hits and general misconduct, while a soft slap on the cheek will get you sent for a ten minute stint on the sidelines.

Referees boss Tony Archer announced on Sunday that the officials made an error in failing to remove Soliola from the field – further evidence that the referees are lost as to what constitutes a send-off and what doesn’t.

Perhaps this stems from the fact that the backlash from both the media and general rugby league public would be so great in the event a player was sent off when they shouldn’t have been.

Whatever the case, a line in the sand was there to be drawn on Saturday night but the opportunity was sadly missed. Anything less now simply cannot be deemed a sin-binnable offence because the referees will be accused of allowing inconsistency to creep into the game.

It could be argued the precedent was set by Tony Archer just a day later. But actions speak louder than words and the fact of the matter is Soliola was allowed to remain on the field. Fans will cry poor as soon as one of their players is sat down over a similar incident because they can offer clear evidence that it has gone unpunished previously.

Tony Archer must come out and set the record straight through introducing black and white rulings around what constitutes a send-off so he is spared future embarrassment.

If he doesn’t then we can safely assume high shots and blatant thuggery like Sia Soliola’s swinging arm or Papalii’s head-high shoulder charge on Dugan will go without punishment on the field.

Something must be done if for no other reason than to ensure a fair contest is had between the side that loses an injured player and is therefore at a disadvantage for the remainder of the eighty-minutes, but also to avoid an injury that could end a players’ career and leave fans wondering why something wasn’t done to protect them earlier.

Archer must also address the clear inconsistencies plaguing the NRL’s million dollar Bunker.

When Daniel Tupou’s try was allowed despite clear evidence of a knock on from Latrell Mitchell in the lead up play on Friday night against the Knights, the Bunker lost all credibility (if it hadn’t already) in the eyes of those supporters whose sides have been robbed of two premiership points by the failings of what was designed to be an infallible system.

If this was the one and only time an error had been made, we wouldn’t be complaining. But it happens on a week to week basis.

Why have they also stopped intervening when the on-field referee blows a penalty that wasn’t there despite having done so previously?

The Bunker was designed to bring more consistency to the game yet we are witnessing an increase in poor decisions and a sudden reduction in the overruling of incorrect penalties.

Then there are the stories that suggest the Bunker are missing out on crucial camera angles because the operators are too busy filming the empty ANZ Stadium seats, and the odd fan who rolls up to the game.

I come back to this question quite often, but what happens if any of these errors occur in the Grand Final?

Ricky Stuart spoke about accountability after the Raiders clash on Saturday, which was a little bizarre given he was very lucky to avoid playing with 12 men, but there was some truth to his fiery rant.

Instead of Tony Archer releasing a media statement full of clichés that has been perfectly scripted to hit the right chords with the clubs, why doesn’t he promote post-season reform or outline the areas the referees are failing in and come up with the appropriate policies to address these issues?

It’s all well and good admitting that an error was made but until this is met with action nothing will change.

The number of refereeing blunders made next year must decrease or Archer should be given his marching orders. If more than half of those made originate in the Bunker, it too must be removed because clearly it is failing to uphold the standards expected by the public and clubs, but also what it was designed for.

The time has come. Enough is enough. Get it right now or be shown the door.

About

Jordan Crick is an aspiring sports writer who is currently studying a Bachelor of Journalism, majoring in sports studies, at the University Of Queensland in Australia. He is a weekly columnist on such websites as: nothingbutleague.com, viewfromtheoutfield.weebly.com and a contributor at theroar.com.au, his author page can be found here: http://www.theroar.com.au/author/jordi_c/. He is also the founder of cricket blog Round The Wicket which was established in late 2015. This site is a collaboration and catalogue of all published and unpublished content produced by Jordan Crick and as such, may not be reproduced in any fashion without the express written consent of the author. Please enjoy trawling through the various sporting content across the site. Be sure to leave your opinion in the comments section of each article, or, contact Jordan Crick on twitter: @cricky_1997